Faster Cache Plugin Options – Advanced Cookie Exclusions

The Faster Cache already knows about a small number of cookies which reveal that a user is interacting with your blog in such a way that information specific to that user will wind up being included on the pages which WordPress delivers to that user. The simplest example is the cookie which tells WordPress that a user is logged in: when that cookie is present, WordPress displays a comment form which does not require the user to enter their details again in order for any comments they submit to be recognised as theirs. Clearly, we do not want to cache pages which contain user-specific data! Yet with several thousand plugins in the WordPress Extend repository, and more appearing every day, it is effectively impossible to keep up with all the different ways that WordPress might wind up tracking users and displaying their personal data on pages. So, the Faster Cache provides both a documented API for plugin authors to register cookies which should prevent pages from being cached AND the following boxes in which you can enter new cookies that should prevent caching. Note that the cache will NOT be cleared automatically when these lists are updated, so if you are concerned that you may already have cached pages delivered to browsers carrying particular cookies, you should activate a cache clearing manually. IMPORTANT: Advanced cookie exclusions should be used with care, especially those which will cause the site’s .htaccess file to be updated. While every effort is made to remove potentially harmful characters, entering gibberish into the boxes below may render your cache or conceivably even your entire site inoperable.

The first type of cookie exclusion will be used only to prevent pages being cached whenever those pages have been generated for a browser carrying a specific cookie, but it will not prevent already cached pages from being delivered to browsers carrying that cookie. In other words, if you enter a cookie name here, then no page delivered to a browser carrying that cookie will ever be cached, but browsers carrying that cookie may receive content that has been cached. Please enter one cookie per line. IMPORTANT: Adding new cookies to this list will NOT trigger an update to your site’s .htaccess file.

Option:

Please Enter One Cookie Per Line (Example: my_important_cookie)

The second type of cookie exclusions will be used to prevent pages from being cached when they have been generated for a browser carrying that cookie AND to prevent already cached pages from being delivered to browsers carrying that cookie. In other words, if you enter a cookie here, browsers carrying that cookie will always receive fresh content, and no content they receive will ever be cached. IMPORTANT: Adding new cookies to this list WILL trigger an update to your site’s .htaccess file, as it is only via rules contained within .htaccess that we can ensure cookie-bearing browsers are always directed to fresh content.

Option:

Please Enter One Cookie Per Line (Example: my_other_cookie)

All material on this site is carefully reviewed, but its accuracy cannot be guaranteed. For best results, please do your own checking and verifying. This specific article was last reviewed or updated by Greg on 27 February 2015.